by Melissa Grey
Now that Ivy had started, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
“And then there’s the issue of my best friend running off on another dangerous and deadly mission to save a guy being held captive by one of the vilest individuals I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. And that’s the best-case scenario. Caius could be dead for all we know, and Echo could be putting herself right into the trap that vicious bitch has left for her.”
“Such language,” Helios said without a hint of judgment. “Go on.”
Oh, would she ever go on. Gladly. The words bubbled up as if they’d been boiling inside her.
“Echo is out there risking her life and I’m sitting here planting godsdamn weeds that insist on dying if the wind doesn’t blow right. I’ve lost my home, I’ve lost people I’ve known since I was a child, and I don’t want to lose her, too. I can’t. I wouldn’t survive that. But I’m here, and she’s…I don’t know where she is, but it’s not here, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.” The words came out in a messy tumble, backed by such force that it felt as though they stole all the air from Ivy’s lungs.
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” said Helios. “You might not be fighting by her side, but you are helping her. Right here, right now.” He motioned toward the fragile crimson stems that had reluctantly taken root in the soil under Ivy’s care. The bloodweed was in a shady corner of the garden; Echo had found it in an underground cave, but the plant seemed to require at least a small amount of light to flourish. The mountain in which the cave had been located, Echo had told Ivy, had bled magic from its very stones, and she was willing to bet that, in the absence of sunlight, magic had helped the weed grow. Short a magic mountain, a shady patch of soil was the best Ivy could do.
“This bloodweed didn’t grow itself,” Helios said. “And there are a lot of people inside the castle right now who are alive because of you.”
Ivy blushed under his praise. “All I did was follow instructions on how to make the elixir. That text we stole from the keep contained everything we needed to figure it out.”
Helios laughed then, a bright, cheerful sound. “You say that as if it were easily laid out for us, not wrapped up in cryptic language and ancient nonsense. Creating that elixir was nothing short of genius, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short.” He reached out to touch the herbs in the basket beside him, sliding a gentle finger along the delicate petals, tracing the veins of the leaves. To both Helios’s and Ivy’s surprise, they had discovered he had a natural gift for cultivating plants. The herbs Ivy used required a delicate touch, and she had not expected to find that in the hands of a Firedrake.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned from spending time with you,” he continued, “it’s that fighting on the front lines isn’t the only way to make a difference.” He closed the distance between them, laying a gentle touch on the back of her hand. He moved slowly enough that Ivy had time to pull away if she wanted to. She didn’t. “I know you want to be out there with Echo. From what I’ve seen, she is more than just a friend, she’s your sister. And I know that telling you not to worry about her would be a waste of breath, but she isn’t alone and neither are you. For what it’s worth—which probably isn’t much—you have my help, whenever and however you may need it.”
Ivy was hyperaware of the points of contact between them, of the fact that they were not quite alone, of the castle tower windows that overlooked the herb garden. Anyone who peered out one of those windows would be able to see Ivy sitting beside someone she once would have considered her enemy, his hand on hers, her eyes on him. Being around Dorian and Caius had changed Ivy. She found that she could hate individuals just fine—Tanith was proof of that—but hating entire groups of people took entirely too much effort.
Helios was looking at her as if he expected her to say something, but the words that had come so freely before now seemed to escape her. “I…Thank you.” It felt inadequate, but it was all she had. Helios barely knew her, and yet he placed enough faith in her to say something like that.
“Your people need you now more than ever,” Helios insisted. “As you said, so much has been lost, and that includes the people they relied on to take care of them. But you can do that for them now. I am confident you can.”
“How?” Ivy asked. “How can you possibly know that?”
“I know that you put yourself in harm’s way to do the right thing, that you walked into the lion’s den, head held high, even though you had to be terrified that you might not walk out. What you did at the keep required an extraordinary amount of bravery, and not once did you falter. I know everything I need to know.”
Helios stood, brushing the dirt off his knees and retrieving their gloves. The power of speech had entirely failed Ivy. She watched, silently, as he picked up his basket of herbs with one hand and held out the other to her. She accepted it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. His hand was so warm in hers, warmer than an Avicen’s, warmer than a human’s. The people of the Dragon seemed to run hotter than everyone else. His grip lingered for a few moments longer than necessary. His back was to the tower, but Helios knew as well as Ivy did that they were probably being watched. She fought the overwhelming urge to hug him.
“Thank you,” she said quietly so not even the keenest ears could overhear. “I needed to hear that.”
Helios grinned, and something fluttered in Ivy’s chest. “Like I said, I’ve got your back.” He bent down to pick up Ivy’s basket as well. He seemed to enjoy doing things like that, although such gestures seemed slightly old-fashioned to Ivy. She was perfectly capable of carrying her own baskets and boxes and bags, but it was nice to have someone who wanted to help her. She felt lighter now that she had shared her burdens, that she had let Helios carry some of the weight.
“What’s next on the agenda?” Helios asked. He looked unbearably charming with his arms full of flowers.
They’d distill elixir from the bloodweed they’d just gathered. Then they’d go to the hospital, where the human victims of the kuçedra were being kept, and administer the elixir. Ivy hoped it worked as well on the humans as it had on the Avicen. Their biology was similar, though not identical. But then, magical healing wasn’t as exact as modern medicine. It was always a bit of a guessing game.
Ivy drew a steadying breath, inhaling the powerful scent of herbs. Helios was right. People needed her, and she knew what she could do to help them. “First we brew some magic potion. Then we save some lives.”
CHAPTER TEN
There was nothing to do but wait.
The log cabin to which the Ala had given them directions stood alone in the forest, its walls half devoured by crawling ivy. On the roof sat a squat chimney, which, during daylight hours, would look perfectly charming belching up woodsmoke. The cabin was modestly appointed: two bedrooms, a small sitting room with a fireplace, and a kitchen that was empty save for a few pots and pans and a lonely box of baking soda in one of the cabinets. The Ala had possessed the foresight to send them with food, all of it healthy. The cabin provided a most picturesque place to wait.
Echo hated waiting. She hated it more than most things she hated: spiders, the texture of oatmeal, people who dog-eared pages in library books. Waiting rankled her in a way few things did. Especially when she had no option but to do it.
The wards that kept Avalon safe prevented the type of magic they were about to attempt. Locator spells didn’t work on the island for the same reason the in-between was inaccessible. The wards jammed the magical frequencies, and the new cloaking spells the mages had erected under the Ala’s supervision added an even stronger layer of protection. It was like painting a window black. No one could peek in, but you couldn’t look out, either.
“Don’t worry. They’ll be back soon enough,” Rowan said. With a wooden spoon, he pushed around the chopped vegetables frying in the pan he’d scoured for ten minutes before deciding it was fit for use. Rowan knew how to cook precisely one thing—stir-fry—and only because it required l
ittle more than throwing a medley of edible items into a pan and applying heat. He took an inordinate amount of pride in this feat.
Echo watched him cook. There was an ease to his posture she hadn’t expected, not after everything he’d been through. Not after being displaced by the in-between like that. Before they’d stepped through the gateway that led them to the cabin, he’d hesitated, but he hadn’t said anything. He’d simply gritted his teeth and plunged into the void, his hand clammy in Echo’s. Now he hummed a jaunty tune, one that Echo only vaguely recognized as a pop song popular last summer, as if nothing had happened.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Echo asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, words clipped. But his shoulders crept slightly upward. He kept his back to her, but she saw the relaxation drain from him, replaced by taut strings of tension. Rowan had been fine, and Echo had gone and ruined it.
Shit.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I just—”
“It’s fine,” Rowan interrupted. “I just don’t want to talk about it.” With a sigh, he glanced at her over his shoulder. “It was scary, and I don’t like being scared.”
“Okay,” Echo said, nodding.
Rowan turned back to the pan, wooden spoon pushing the diced vegetables around. Echo wished he’d start humming again. He didn’t. Seconds ticked by in silence. Then minutes.
“I have a new word for you,” said Rowan. The statement had the air of a peace offering.
Echo accepted it. “Hit me.”
“Shash biza’azis hólóní.” Rowan enunciated each syllable with the careful precision that came only from practice.
“That’s a mouthful. What does it mean?”
“It’s the Navajo word for koala. It literally means ‘bear with a pocket.’ ”
Echo’s fingers ceased their restless drumming on the kitchen table. “I love it.”
And she did. But it was only a temporary balm. The restlessness returned. She got up. Paced. Sat back down. Chewed on a half-broken nail. Got up again.
She really did hate waiting.
“Will you stop pacing like a caged tiger?” Rowan glanced up from the sizzling pan. “You’re driving me nuts.”
“I’m not pacing,” Echo said as she paced. “I’m wallowing in the winter of my discontent.”
Rowan rolled his eyes and went back to the stir-fry.
Dorian and Jasper were off awaiting the arrival of one of Dorian’s contacts within Wyvern’s Keep. Thanks to the mirrored pendant Ivy had delivered to Caius’s network of loyalists inside the keep’s virtually impregnable walls, Dorian and those still loyal to Caius were able to communicate. The mirror was magically tethered to Dorian’s sword. If he wrote something in blood on the steel blade, it would appear on the mirrored side of the pendant within the keep. As far as Echo knew, Dorian and his allies were communicating via a kind of symbolic Morse code or Drakhar runes or something. She hadn’t paid much attention to the details.
“What if Dorian’s contact doesn’t show?” Echo asked. It wasn’t the first hypothetical she had posed in the hour since Jasper and Dorian had departed the cabin, and Rowan answered it with a magnanimity born of patient repetition.
“They’ll show.”
“Yeah, but what if they don’t?”
Rowan’s shoulders rose and fell with an inaudible sigh. He was probably counting to ten. “If they don’t show, then we try again.” Echo opened her mouth to pose another pessimistic question. She was full of them. But Rowan continued. “And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll find another way.”
There was no other way. They had spent weeks racking their brains trying to think of another way, but this was all they had come up with. Echo swallowed her objections and accepted Rowan’s determined optimism.
“You’re being awfully nice about all this,” Echo said.
Rowan placed the wooden spoon on the countertop and wiped his hands on a towel he’d thrown over his shoulder. He looked awfully domestic.
“You’re my friend,” Rowan said.
That was a gross simplification of the mess of their entwined lives, but Echo allowed it.
“And no matter what, I don’t like to see you suffer. I know you feel responsible for what’s happening to Caius, which I think is absurd, but I also know there’s no talking you out of something once you’ve decided to shoulder the blame.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. They both let a long moment pass in silence, an acknowledgment of the back-and-forth they now knew by heart. There was no need to repeat it all out loud.
“And,” Rowan said, turning back to his stir-fry, which was sizzling quite happily, “even if I don’t like him, I can admit that Caius is maybe not a completely terrible person and he probably doesn’t deserve whatever his batshit insane sister is doing to him.”
That was the nicest thing Rowan had ever said about Caius.
“Color me shocked,” Echo said.
“I know,” Rowan said. “I’m really growing as a person.”
Before Echo could hit him with a witty retort, the phone in her pocket rang. She dug it out as Rowan stirred the vegetables with a studied fastidiousness. The Ala’s number flashed across the screen. Echo answered with a swipe of her thumb.
“Miss me already?” Echo said.
“I have a task for you.” The Ala’s clipped tones were all business. So not a social call, then.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Echo said. She thumped the heel of her boot on the floor to get Rowan’s attention. He turned the burner down and joined her at the table. Echo put the phone on speaker. “What’s going on?”
“Our scouts have come back to Avalon with some interesting reports. While you wait for your friends to return, I would like you to follow up on the reports. I do know how much you loathe waiting.”
Echo suppressed a sardonic grin. “Define ‘interesting.’ ”
“Drakharin,” the Ala said. “In Avicen territory.”
Rowan leaned closer to the phone. “What makes this incursion special? We have spies in their territory. That’s always been the case.”
“According to my scouts, these individuals don’t look like spies. Or warriors,” said the Ala. “They appear to be civilians. And aside from avoiding human settlements, they don’t seem to be hiding. It’s almost as though they want to be found.”
Echo frowned. “That’s unusual.”
“Most unusual, yes.” The Ala’s voice went distant and muffled as she spoke to someone nearby. When she returned, her voice sounded harried. “As we are short on numbers, I was hoping you would be able to track these Drakharin down and assess the situation. They might react better to you than to Avicen scouts.”
Echo wiggled her fingers. “Because I’m feather-free?”
“Indeed.” Another short, muffled conversation followed. The Ala sounded impatient, a trait she seldom displayed. “I’ll send you the location. I take it this won’t be a problem.”
The scent of smoke drifted through the kitchen. Rowan jumped up with a bitten-off curse. His vegetables were burning.
“Nope,” Echo said. Rowan was frantically waving the towel in the air to clear the smoke. The stir-fry was a lost cause. Maybe they’d be able to pick something up on the way. “Not a problem at all.”
—
Echo blinked against the beaming Cairo sun as she peeled off her leather jacket. Normally, she didn’t balk at wearing layers, no matter how inappropriate the climate—the leather jacket suited her aesthetic—but the heat was oppressive. When she said as much to Rowan, he merely shrugged and said, “Could be worse. At least it’s a dry heat.”
At least. Echo still wanted to crawl out of her skin and die.
The Ala had sent Echo a set of coordinates via text message. She had also appended a series of incomprehensibly selected emojis to the end of the text, as was her fashion. Echo didn’t know what an alien head, smiling poop, and a wineglass meant, but ever since she had shown the Ala how to send the
m, every text from her was punctuated with an increasingly incongruous and baffling array.
Echo had replied with a simple “Thanks. On it,” followed by her own emojis: baby chick hatching from a shell, fire, stars. She thought it made a good enough signature for the firebird.
The Ala’s instructions had led them to a bustling Cairo side street in a neighborhood teeming with tourists and locals alike. Sidewalk stands were packed from top to bottom with vibrant fabrics and hanging lamps in all colors of the rainbow. Echo wondered if they were authentic, or the schlock put out to tempt tourists’ wallets. Probably the latter.
“It’s weird that Drakharin would come this far into a city as populated as Cairo,” Echo said. “They’re usually a lot warier of humans than the Avicen. Centuries of isolation doesn’t exactly enamor them of being in close quarters with a race they don’t like.”
Rowan squinted at the map they’d picked up from one of the vendors. The compass on his phone had stopped working once they’d exited the in-between in Egypt, so they’d had to resort to analog means to track down the Drakharin the Avicen scouts had spotted.
“Maybe they were being followed,” Rowan said. “This is pretty much the last place their own people would think to look for them. Too many humans. That’s why the Avicen stayed in New York even after the population boomed way back in the day. We’re pretty much hiding in a crowd. Maybe they took a page out of the Avicen playbook.” He glanced up from the map to read the street signs. “We should be close.”
They ventured down a series of twisting side streets that led them farther from the tourist area. Stray cats darted between their legs, absolutely fearless in their hunt for their next meal. The windows in this part of town were either dark or boarded up. Graffiti in at least three different languages was splashed along the walls.